windows 98 not seeing dvd rom drive or cd-rw 1

[cinnamin]

hello everyone i am new here ? i having a problem with my drives i booted 98 se up and when i went into my computer i noticed that windows wasn't picking up any of the drives they are gettingpower because they will open and close and all that but the only drives that are in my computer are the a, and c drives. i then went into the bios and i can see the cd-rw in there but i don't see the the dvd drive. this is how i have them hooked up i have the hard drive on the system ide and i have the other drives on the secondary one the cd-rw is the master and the dvd drive is on the second. when i was in the bios it said that there was none were the dvd drive is connected. can it be a faulty ide cable i am ready to pull my hair out

 

[kestrel1]

Make sure that the DVD drive is set to slave & the CD-RW set to Master with slave present (if it has that option) if not just master.
If it is already set like this, just connect the DVD using the known working IDE plug on the cable, just to make sure that the cable isn't faulty. Cables are cheap enough though, so if you think the cable may be faulty replace it.
In the BIOS set the secondary IDE channel (Master & Slave) to Auto.
When you boot up after this they should both appear on your screen.
Also in the BIOS make sure that you have plug & play aware os set to yes.

 

[cinnamin]

thankyou so much kestrel1
i forgot to set the dvd drive to slave i went into the bios and i saw both of the drives and on the boot up screen i saw them there as well i can't belive i forgot. now i know better next time.thanks again

 

[kestrel1]

Good. Glad it is now working for you.
You are not the only one to forget to set the jumpers correctly, I have done the same thing myself & I also can't believe I forgot. Still, it is working now.

 

[cinnamin]

hey kestrel while i was in there i solved another porblem it was with the ethernet card i installed earlier it wasn't showing up either so i pulled it out and put it back in come to find out it wasn't seated in the slot right go figure, i was ready to throw that pc out of a window. thanks again

 

[kestrel1]

It is always a good idea to re-check the seating of cards if they don't show up. This is another easy thing to get wrong first time. Also if the slot has been empty, you need to check that there is no dust in there & that the contacts look clean.
If in doubt about the cleanliness of the contacts you could try running a fibre pen along the slot & using a vacuum cleaner to remove any dust.
Good job you didn't chuck the PC out then really.

 

[cinnamin]

thanks for the great tips kestrel1 it didn't need cleaning but i did it anyway and while i was at it i cleaned out the whole pc it wasn't as dusty as i thought.

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